THIS election is on a knife edge and GMB members in every constituency across Wales are out now canvassing and campaigning for Labour candidates. 

First, it just has to be Labour. No other party has trade unionism stamped into its soul in the same way.  

We say this with pride — Labour achievements, from the establishment of the NHS to devolution and the establishment of the Senedd, are trade union achievements. 

They are delivered in partnership with the party that we established and that we meet with in social partnership every day. It’s our party, through thick and thin, and that isn’t going to change. 

The Greens, Plaid, Lib Dems — they just don’t have the links with trade unions and that’s primarily because the partnership between working people, their trade unions and with the Labour Party works. 

And all the recent polling shows that it’s again a clear two-way fight between Labour and the Tories forming a government here in Wales.  

While the Tories have tried to rebrand themselves after winning seats in the red wall (a dubious constituency), it’s clear they have no direction, belief or vision of what Wales and Britain can be. 

Boris Johnson is the epitome of that — a man with few values and a bad habit of saying to an audience whatever they want to hear, then backtracking later. 

Just last week we’ve watched the Tories promise new schools and hospitals to Wales, after years of Tory austerity have run them down. 

And it’s clear from Breakfast to Brexit that Andrew RT Davies is little more than Johnson’s emissary to Wales. 

Where Johnson wanders, he follows. Take it from me, if they want to win votes, forget the hospitals — give our NHS nurses the pay rise that they so badly deserve after serving during the Covid crisis. 

But what do GMB members want to see from a new Welsh Labour government? Well, our biggest priority right now is the implementation of the Social Partnership and Public Procurement Wales Act. 

Why is this important? Well, it’s simple.  

About 20 years ago after Labour had secured victory in an assembly election, Rhodri Morgan met a few union officials, including me, to celebrate the victory and chat about how to enact the Labour manifesto. 

Over that drink I said to Rhodri: “This victory is great, but what happens if we don’t win an assembly election, and we find ourselves in opposition? How then will unions get their voices heard in policy-making?”

Rhodri, in his usual inimitable way, said: “I don’t know, Mike, but that’s a very good point, let me think about that and I’ll get back to you.”  

Over the next 20 years, the foundations were laid so that unions and working people are cemented into the foundations of the Welsh Parliament — Welsh workers’ voices heard at the heart of government. 

From the workplace to the corridors of power, we’ve always believed that Britain is a better place when working people make the call on the decisions that affect them. 

GMB members make up a decent proportion of the assembly group and the PLP, but elected representation is only part of achieving a better deal.  

As the GMB founder, Will Thorne said in the late 19th century, “Industrial strength can achieve agreements, but for those agreement to prevail they need statutory underpinning.” 

The landmark Social Partnership and Public Procurement Wales Bill will cement working people’s voices into the government of Wales and give statutory rights to workers in the way that Rhodri and I had hoped all those years ago.  

It puts the power into the hands of workers themselves — they will have direct representation in the workplace, via the expansion of collective bargaining, and at the government table, through the workers’ trade unions articulating their beliefs, wants and principles directly into policy-making. 

It will mean that we have a greater say on procurement, cracking down on rogue employers who use unscrupulous practices that put workers at risk. 

And it will have the weight of being applied to recipients of Welsh government funds, meaning that anyone in receipt of the funds will have to abide by the ethical procurement code, and economic contract — pushing trade union values, equality and social justice to the forefront. 

While this sounds like small fish, the impact of this policy will be huge for working people across Wales, and it will rebalance the power between workers, their employers and government through a truly tripartite arrangement. 

That is a vision that’s worth fighting for, and one that I alongside many GMB members will be out on the doors for Labour, campaigning for this Thursday.